


half a heart

by leitmotifs (orphan_account)



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: AU, Criminal lack of the other boys, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-28
Updated: 2013-12-28
Packaged: 2018-01-06 11:24:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1106244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/leitmotifs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They had promised that if they couldn’t find their other halves then they would force theirs together, make the jagged edges of the pendants of their hearts fit. But that was years ago, Harry knew — before Niall did find the other half of his, the other half of his heart that belonged to someone who wasn’t Harry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	half a heart

**Author's Note:**

> [on tumblr](http://justlogorrheic.tumblr.com/post/71400513263/half-a-heart-harry-niall)
> 
>  
> 
> this one's been a long time coming but laziness is an awful habit ;~;

Standing next to closed church doors and listening to the low murmurs coming from the other side, this is the last thing you wanted to happen. He is standing a little ways from you with concern creasing his brow and a question on the tip of his tongue, _are you okay, Harry,_ and no, you’re not okay. Your hands— they shake as you reach up to loosen your tie and alleviate the nausea. It does not work, and that itself sends another flare of panic through you, sending the world spinning. You do not want to be here, so you turn around. You ignore his calls and you brace yourself against a banister and close your eyes and.

You breathe.

You remember when you were young.

Small hands ran along the chain of your necklace, down to the pendant that hung in the center. It took the shape of a heart struck in half, and it’s funny, how they used to say that if you found the other half, then you were soul mates. _Soul mates,_ you’d ask, _do you think they really exist?_ and he would shrug and tell you he doesn’t know, but later when you were both tucked away in the haven of your room, he would curl up against your side and trace your fingers carefully, affectionately, with his, and that itself would be enough of an answer.

You did not wear your heart on your sleeve, but instead let it dangle from a silver chain that has hung around your neck for as long as you can remember. You kept it hidden underneath your shirt, but the cold of the metal pressing against your skin was a reminder of your obligation.

“If you don’t find yours,” he once said, all promises and naïveté, “we can make ours fit.”

His heart is silver but you think it should be gold.

At eleven years of age, you watched your sister fall in love with a man whose half fit neatly into hers. _But which part came first_ , you wanted to know, _realizing that your hearts made a whole or falling in love?_ She answered that it did not matter, and you did not understand, because what if you didn't love your other half? What if you loved someone whose heart didn't match yours?

You remember when you knew no better.

During the ceremony, he sat next to you. The soft light hit his necklace in a way that made the pendant gleam wickedly, and you reached up for your own, felt over the broken edges.

He turned to you, as if sensing something was off, and you brushed him off and motioned for him to pay attention. He acceded, but at the reception afterwards, he brought you a slice of chocolate cake and kept you company in the back.

His heart is silver but you think it should be gold.

You were thirteen when you asked why.

Why must you wear the necklace, why are they so important, why can’t you find someone of your own accord rather than leaving something like _love_ up to fate, up to the whims of nature?

You heard of the brave decisions of people to break from tradition, but you also heard of the aftermaths of their stories. You knew that they were stories meant to make you afraid. They worked.

“I don’t want to be alone,” you admitted out loud.

Lying there on the ground, next to blond hair and blue eyes and happiness, you spoke in hushed tones as if to keep the stars from hearing. You felt safe, you thought, safe enough to admit this fear that’s been festering for years now.

“You won’t be,” he said. He shifted to his side and motioned for you to do the same, and once he could, he reached over and tugged your necklace into plain view. “You have me.” He took your pendant in one hand and his in another and pieced them together as best as he could, letting their surfaces reflect the clouds and the moon. The edges, sharp and mismatching, clanked dully in the evening air.

“They don’t fit,” you said. The words had a sense of finality to the syllables: they sounded harsher when you spoke them.

“If you never find yours,” he said, digressing from your comment, “then you’ll still have me. You’ll always have me.” He smiled, this crooked smile that crinkled the edges of his eyes and made butterflies shift restlessly in your stomach. “Remember what I said? We’ll make them fit.”

“It doesn’t work like that.” You pulled away, slipping yours back underneath your shirt.

He stared after you and said, obdurate as always, “Of course it can.”

You remember wanting to believe him.

Sixteen years old and standing awkwardly to the side while everyone else is on the dance floor with the words H-O-M-E-C-O-M-I-N-G on a banner overhead, you believed him. With shaky hands and furtive glances and the burn of a blush on your cheeks, you believed him. At a first kiss that was shy and awkward but soft and affectionate and perfect: God, you believed him.

You didn’t know what to do. You had half a heart and he had half a heart and somewhere in the world, there were people made especially for you and made especially for him, people whose pieces would fit and guarantee you a life full of happiness. You loved, love, and will continue to love him for forever and a day and that was, is, and will continue to be why you couldn’t, can’t, and will never be able to let this happen.

“We could do it, you know,” he confided in you, weaving promises that were clumsy and made with nothing but the best of intent. “Just forget the necklaces. Go off on our own.”

You told him, “I can’t,” the very next day, and his expression dropped and his shoulders slumped, and he said, “I understand,” and you could tell that he did indeed; he just didn't want to.

(His heart is silver but you think it should be gold.)

Neither did you.

 _Friends_. You stayed friends. He still came over and spent weekends with you and you still accompanied him in study hall and helped him with his homework. If he glanced at you longer than necessary and if you let your hand linger just a little bit against his, then it was never pointed out; it was a silent agreement that worked frighteningly, regretfully well.

After the end of your fourth year of high school, you came home one day to find a letter in the mail. _Dear Harry_ , began the familiar scrawl and ended with a _yours, Niall._

 _What is courage?_ you remember thinking bitterly and answering yourself that courage, _courage_ , was having the decency to say goodbye to someone’s face, not through a letter.

But now, you think that perhaps—

Courage would have been deciding why _not_ and kissing him again instead of letting the words, “I understand,” tumble from his lips. Courage would have been deciding that these damned necklaces have no importance after all. Courage would have been thinking less about hearts and more about the soft lips against yours and the baffling, incomprehensible boy in front of you; the beautiful, incredible _home_ that’s stood there all along.

Courage could have saved you from this: in the present, standing in the church and facing him for the first time in three years, with his suit and tie and hand that will soon bear a wedding ring.

You remember the call, the way you instantly recognized his voice despite the years that have gone by and the crackle of the receiver.

 _I found him_ , he said, _I found the other half,_ and you asked, _When_ , and he hesitated before answering, _Two years ago._

 _I’m getting married_ , he said, voice suddenly gone quiet, and he told you that he wanted you there, wanted you at his side.

You said yes.

“You said yes.”

He looks at you now with something like hurt in his blue eyes. “You said you would be here.”

“I am,” you say, and it’s true. You’ve been here for a total of eleven minutes, and then you realized that you will be watching him walk through the doors and start down the aisle and towards his other half and the rest of his life and someone who isn’t you. “Do you,” the words catch, briefly, “really want to do this?”

He gestures around you, the ornate decorations and rich maroon drapes and red roses. Eventually he lets his hand fall back to his side and he stops, swallows. “I love him. He loves me.”

“Which came first, love or your pieces fitting together?” you ask evenly, and he shrinks away from you.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says.

“Yes, it does.” Your hand curls into a fist against the wall and you look at him, gaining more and more strength in your voice with each word. “What if you’re matched to someone you don’t like? What if you love someone else? You can’t just marry him because your necklaces happen to fit, that’s not how things are supposed to work—“

“I love _you_.”

Your voice is rising higher and louder in a crescendo of confidence, but you hear those three little words and you

stop.

You stop.

It’s hard not to simply turn and walk the rest of the way out: “Past tense?”

“Present tense.” His own voice wobbles, cracks. “You said you couldn’t do it. You let me talk about how we can make our pieces fit, _you_ kissed me, and the next day, you told me you couldn’t do it.”

You don’t really hear beyond the first two words, and they loop over and over in your thoughts like a broken record you would never tire of listening to. There are a thousand things waiting to be said between you and it will take a while, you know, to fully amend for what’s between you know, but perhaps you can start with: “I love you too.”

It’s a rush, for those words to finally be laid out on the table. You love him and he loves you and you don’t think anything can compare to the rush of euphoria suddenly coursing through your veins. This is you and this is him and this is love.

He is looking at you with something akin to wonder and disbelief.

“You said we could do it, didn’t you?” It takes three steps to close the distance between you, and you take his hand, tracing the fingers that used to take his heart and your heart and see if they fit. “We could go off on our own. No one would have to know.”

 “After I moved,” he mutters, “you ignored me. I called you, wrote to you, but all I ever got were voicemails and no replies.” He laughs, and it’s a breathy, nervous noise. “You haven’t even said sorry yet.”

You look at him. “Then give me a chance to,” you say, softly, and you hold out a hand.

Five years late: this is courage.

 

.

 

This is you getting into your car and this is him slipping into the passenger’s seat. This is the church whose doors are closed and will remain closed, because he’s made a decision and that decision is you.

“Where are we going?” he whispers, and he sounds small, almost afraid.

“Anywhere,” you reply. “Anywhere you want.”

And he asks if you can just drive, and you reach over and take his hand and squeeze it, reassuring, and tell him that of course you can.

You’ve wasted years being blind, but now you have all the time in the world and you’re going to start making up for it.

“Give me your necklace,” you say before you maneuver your car onto the road, and you are already reaching up and taking off your own.

Wordlessly, he reaches behind his neck, undoes the clasp, and drops it into your palm. For a moment, you simply stare at the half-hearts. His is silver, despite that you always thought it should be gold, and both of them have jagged edges that never fit and never will.

But that’s okay.

You toss them out of the window.

You’re speeding down the road now and Niall’s next to you and your hands are still twined and if your heart feels like it’s brimming with _love_ for this boy, then perhaps— it is the only heart that has mattered all along.


End file.
